Off the record: ChartierDalix
Interview with French architects Frédéric Chartier and Pascale Dalix, founders of ChartierDalix office, based in Paris. For AA, they share their views on the profession, their sources of inspiration as well as their vision of the future
Since its creation in 2008, Chartier Dalix has completed about fifteen buildings including the Renault’s design division rehabilitation in Guyancourt and a mixed-use building in Paris Clichy Batignolles new development area (both 2017), as well as a 54-unit private housing block, including retail spaces, in Saint-Denis (2018). In 2016, ChartierDalix won the bid for the Ternes-Villiers site in the “Reinventing Paris” call for innovative projects, and in 2017 the office won the competition for the metamorphosis of the Montparnasse Tower in Paris, creating for the occasion the Nouvelle AOM office with Franklin Azzi Architecture and Hardel & Le Bihan Architects.
Being an architect means…
Frédéric Chartier: Let things be.
Pascale Dalix : Design spaces welcoming all beings
The new challenges of the profession
FC: Learn how to work with the elements, and not against them.
PD: Provide a cohesion between mankind and nature.
Our ideal commission
FR: The next one!
PD: My ideal commissioner…
Our job in 20 years
FC: Vanished…. or essential.
PD: Huts, sheds, rehabilitations…
The advice we would give a young architect
FC: Dream hard, work hard.
PD: Take pleasure in the unfinished.
What we wish to pass on to our co-workers
FC: Being demanding.
PD: Intuition.
The rising architect we should follow
FC and PD: The new generation of East Asian architects.
The project we would have loved to build
FC: How to claim ownership of a building?
PD: A project of reconciliation, with no particular model.
Another career we’d have liked to pursue
FC: Music, in all its forms.
PD: Hunter-gatherer.
An inspiring place
FC: Our new office.
PD: Very dense city, very dense nature.
A book, an object, a piece of art we particularly like
FC: My summer reading, the Red-Riding Quartet by David Peace, for his diabolical construction.
PD: Lina Bo Bardi’s work.
Visit the office’s website for more information.
In December 2017, L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui dedicated an article to ChartierDalix’s Biodiversity school group and gymnasium in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, in issue 422, still available on our online store.
To read the full article, click on the picture:
